Grandmesnil (actor)
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Jean-Baptiste Fauchard (19 March 1737, Paris – 24 May 1816, Paris), stage name Grandmesnil or Grand-Ménil), was a French actor and playwright.
Life
At first a lawyer in the parliament of Paris, then a counsellor in the Admiralty, he spoke out against the Parlement Maupeou and left France in 1771. Taking refuge in Brussels, he gave himself over the theatrical interests he had always had and appeared in several servant roles. Returning to France some years later, he acted in Marseille and then in Bordeaux, where he played financiers and "rôles à manteau".
On 31 August 1790, he made his début at the Comédie-Française (becoming a societaire of it in 1792), from which he retired on 21 March 1811. Grandmesnil was noted as one of the best interpreters of Molière and particularly excelled in the rôles of Arnolphe and Harpagon. The distinction of his manners and the constant regularity of his lifestyle were highly valued and in 1796 he was summoned to the Académie des Beaux-Arts de l'Institut de France on its formation, in the Literature and Fine Arts classe.
Works
Grandmesnil wrote two plays, although they may have never been performed in his lifetime.
- Le Savetier joyeux (1759)
- Tant pis pour elles, tant pis pour eux et tant mieux pour eux, tant mieux pour elles, ou le Voyage impromptu (1760)
Sources
- Gustave Vapereau, Dictionnaire universel des littératures, Paris, Hachette, 1876, p. 923
External links
- His works and productions of them on the CÉSAR site
See also
- Articles with short description
- Short description matches Wikidata
- Biography articles needing translation from French Wikipedia
- Articles with ISNI identifiers
- Articles with VIAF identifiers
- Articles with BNF identifiers
- Articles with BNFdata identifiers
- Articles with MusicBrainz identifiers
- Articles with SUDOC identifiers
- 1737 births
- 1816 deaths
- French male stage actors
- 18th-century French dramatists and playwrights
- Sociétaires of the Comédie-Française
- Male actors from Paris